What do you do when an evil Emu threatens to take over the world and threatens all the Skyfish?Why, you call Cannon Cat, of course!Such is the off-the-wall premise of the latest game from Loqheart.

I do love the way some developers squeeze these mad stories in to justify their game having a cat being fired from various cannons and being attacked by propeller-wearing penguins, it just gives each game a greater sense of character, and Cannon Cat has this in spades.

Story aside, players are tasked with launching the hero cat from one cannon to the next, avoiding killer penguins, spikey urchins and all manner of sea-based enemies.Some cannons move by themselves and have to be timed perfectly, some need to be moved manually and others are static.Add to this various bouncy creatures who can propel you in another direction, obstacles that block the easiest route and skyfish to collect along the way.

Collecting the Skyfish gives you an ending bonus which, in turn, allows you to earn small amounts of Sparks that grant power-ups from the cat-shaped store between levels.These power-ups give you the ability to slow time, make the fish bigger (and therefore easier to collect) or a rewind feature to re-do the last event.

Sparks do run out rather quickly, though, and the dreaded In App Payment is there to help you should you need more.The good news, though, is that power-ups aren’t necessarily needed to complete levels, they’re just helping hands for those who find the going tough.

Speaking of tough, while the levels start out pretty easy, they soon grow fairly challenging and later levels require pretty fast reflexes in order to navigate around the enemies and hit the ending hoop.The game still leaves the decision of collecting all the Skyfish to the player, but most will want to go back over each of the 80 levels and collect them all.

The second set of levels, set in Cedaria Reef, introduces a few new features, including the bouncy fish who can be used to bounce off in order to reach other cannons, but the game occasionally slows down a little on the 4th Gen iPod Touch with so much going on.The iPhone 4 and 4S didn’t seem to replicate the issue.

Loqheart’s game is certainly bright and colourful enough to catch your eye, something that helps when plotting your course through the level.The characters and even the cannons are pretty cute, lulling players into a false sense of security before hitting them with those later rock-hard levels.The game is also helped by the easy-to-use one touch control system, which enables the player to get to grips with the game quickly but still allows for a challenge in later levels.

Cannon Cat’s bright and humorous nature shines through and makes it easy to recommend to both platform lovers and those with a penchant for physics based games.The fact that it’s both free and universal make it a must have.